Poetry, Prose, Politics and More

Menu

A Tale of Two Memes

I am not a big fan of having to write about a specific issue twice in one week. I hate abusing the proverbial equine once it has shuffled off its mortal coil and such. Every once in a while though someone, or something, sticks in my craw. Maybe the issue is so big, or maybe someone reminds me that they still need an education on it. Such is the case with the following meme.

Hi, I’m the new face of the Christian Victimization Complex

What really galls me about this is the fact that the first statement in it is so easily refuted, yet those Christians who want to feel victimized still desperately cling to it as truth. Over and again civil liberties advocates have to explain, no, remind, these people that no one is going to ban a kid from reading a Bible if they so choose to do so in school. Hell, no one is even going to bar them from forming prayer groups, on school grounds, so long as no school employees oversee the prayer groups. There is a very good reason for that last bit, and it protects you Christians as well. Do you really want someone who does not interpret the Bible as you and your church do to teach your kids about it?
It also short-changes the very real social ills that create the prison pipeline sending so many young men (well, mostly men) to prisons: concentrated poverty, broken schools, draconian drug laws that make having a health issue a criminal issue, and an increasingly private prison system that actively lobbies to keep all those problems, especially the last one, in place so they can make a profit off of human misery.
In fact the truly funny part about this is the schools who are the nearest that pipeline are the ones too busy with other problems to give one tenth of one fuck if a teacher is leading kids in prayer. They have bigger fish to fry. So hey, if you are so concerned that a lack of Bible study is what is causing their problems (it’s not, poor people in general, poor PoC in particular, tend to be big on that book) then be my guest and volunteer to teach it to them. I’m sure most of you feel perfectly comfortable in those neighborhoods.
I have another meme for you here. This one is far closer to the truth of the situation for Christians in this country, even though many of you hate to think about it.

Privilege hates to be called out, and that is exactly what we are talking about here. Christians enjoy a privileged position in our country. If your name at least sounds Christian, you are probably not on a no fly list. If your heritage is a Christian one, you probably don’t have a grandparent or other elderly relative, with numbers tattooed on their arm. If you are a Christian you are not legally barred from holding office in seven states. If you are Christian, most states have amended their Constitutions to accommodate your view of what marriage is and is not.
I have been legitimately oppressed, often times by the very acts in that last paragraph. I am not allowed to hold office just south of my home state of NY in Pennsylvania. I have been drummed out of the Army over things that were no one else’s business. I have been threatened with real violence over who I am, though I was doing no one any harm. The fact that some Christians (and I do need to qualify it there, because I know at least a handful that are as offended by this “war on Christianity” myth as I am) try to claim to be oppressed when they would not know oppression if it bit them on their pasty, well fed, white (which also needs to be mentioned, because a disproportionate number of these folks are white), posteriors that they park in a pew once a week to prove their moral superiority is offensive and cruel to those of us who have experienced it.
I want to be able to have a civilized conversation with you folks about this. So long as you insist in equating an increasingly accepting society’s telling you that it is verbotten to insist everyone follow your faith with victimizing you (you know, rather than keeping you from victimizing others) that is going to be impossible. Grow up, educate yourself and for goodness sake, stop with the crocodile tears.

Post navigation

4 thoughts on “A Tale of Two Memes”

Christine,
Thank you so much for calling this meme and the implications out! I agree. You can’t control the dominant discourse and play the victim card both! I do grow ever weary of white heterosexuals with great privilege claiming victim status!